The present invention relates to a silicone-based fabric finishing agent or, more particularly, to a fabric finishing agent which is an aqueous emulsion of a silicone-based copolymer capable of imparting a fabric material with a soft and pleasant feeling of high resilience with excellent launderability and durability.
It is conventional to use an organopolysiloxane fluid as a fabric treatment agent for softening finish or to use a crosslinkable organopolysiloxane as a fabric treatment agent for elastic finish. These silicone-based fabric finishing agents, however, are not fully effective when elastic resilience of high level is desired of the fabric materials treated therewith. Accordingly, it is desired to develop a silicone-based fabric treatment agent capable of forming a coating film on the fibers of the treated fabric material to impart improved softness and enhanced elastic resilience thereto.
Japanese Patent Publication No. 52-12231 teaches that a tough and highly resilient coating film on fibers can be formed by treating a fabric material with an aqueous dispersion of a film-forming copolymer prepared by the copolymerization of an organic monomer such as styrene in an aqueous medium with a vinyl group-containing organopolysiloxane obtained by emulsion polymerization. This fabric treatment agent, however, is not satisfactory for a finishing treatment of fabric materials in general because of the stiffness of the coating film formed on fiblers. Japanese Patent Kokai No. 58-126378 discloses a fabric treatment agent comprising a polymerizate obtained by the copolymerization of a vinyl group-containing organopolysiloxane, an organohydrogenpolysiloxane and a vinyl monomer. This fabric treatment agent, however, imparts the treated fabric material with a stiff feeling and is not capable of imparting a pleasant feeling of softness. It is therefore highly desirable to develop a fabric treatment agent capable of imparting well balanced softness and elastic resilience to the fabric material treated therewith.